Mosaic - Jeri Taylor [41]
He pointed toward the thick grove of fruit trees that lay less than half a kilometer away. "They've taken cover again," he announced. "Your group will flush them out."
"If they're so close, why are there no readings on our sensing indicators?"
"I see life signs in the grove," retorted Sittik. "Do as I say."
"I don't believe the life signs are those of the Federations-was "Miskk, I am in charge of this mission. Obey my command or it is you who will spend two weeks in chains."
Sittik was gratified to see Miskk flush with color, start to speak, and then swallow his reply. With a curt nod, he gestured to his men and they moved toward the dense grove of trees.
Then Sittik resumed his scanning, desperately trying to figure out where the Federations really were.
Harry Kim was getting frustrated. But it was better than sitting around, wondering if the Kazon would find them.
He and Kes had begun to explore the underground structure as soon as Tuvok had organized the group into teams. It was proving to be vast, and so far was producing more mystery than enlightenment. There were kilometers of mazelike corridors that would have taken days, if not weeks, to chart. But that was all. Corridors, all constructed of that strange material which possessed organic qualities. No chambers that he could detect, in spite of the most sensitive of tricorder readings. No bodies, no skeletons, no drawings, no artifacts. Nothing that might be expected in a tomb of what had seemed to be such a ritualized society. After he and Kes had been searching for half an hour, he turned to her in frustration. "I don't understand it. They went to great lengths to hide this structure; it must have been of value to thembut there's nothing here."
"There must be something here. We just haven't found it yet.
"Tricorders aren't showing anything that would give us a clue." He turned in a circle, tricorder extended. "Just stone... stone... and more stone. Or whatever one calls this stuff. It looks like an inert mineral, but it definitely has an organometallic component."
Then suddenly his eyes widened as he spotted something besides stone on his readout. "Kes-are you getting a reading? Up above ground?" Kes lifted her arm to point in the same direction he was, and he saw her brow furrow slightly. She looked over at him. "Kazoo," she said grimly. Unmistakable Kazon life signs flickered on their tricorders. The Kazon were above them, tramping through the sod that served as the ceiling for the underground tunnels. They couldn't hear anything-the ceiling piece was half a meter thick and well insulated with sod-and they assumed the Kazon couldn't hear them. Yet they found themselves whispering. "Kim to Tuvok."
"I'm here, Ensign."
"I'm picking up Kazon life signs above us."
"Acknowledged. We have the same readings. All teams should be at the ready. But stay where you are. I'd rather have us spread out in order to make it more difficult for them to detect us."
"Yes, sir." He turned to Kes, who continued to study her tricorder intently.
"If we read their life signs, you'd think they could read ours."
"Maybe they can. But figuring how to get down here is a different story. I found the mechanism because I realized what the pattern on the ground represented. But I'm betting the Kazon were just tracking us. They haven't gone through the thought processes I did. As far as they're concerned, we were on the surface, and now we're not. I don't think they'll figure out how we got here."
"I hope you're right."
"Let's keep going. I'd like to find out what this underground maze is all about."
She nodded and they moved off down the corridor, scanning continuously, wrist beacons bravely knifing through a darkness that seemed to have been undisturbed for-how long? There were nothing but questions here. For another fifteen minutes they wound their way through corridors, carefully charting their course on the tricorders;